Forgotten Hollywood

For Pride Month June 2026, James Lott JR guest stars. The film most often considered the first major film to feature an explicitly gay character/storyline is Different from the Others (Anders als die Andern), a 1919 German silent film. It starred Conrad Veidt as a gay violinist whose relationship with a male student leads to blackmail and tragedy. It was also made with sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld and is often called the first gay-rights film in history. For American/Hollywood film, it gets more complicated because gay characters were often coded for decades because of censorship. A major milestone is The Boys in the Band from 1970, one of the first mainstream American films to openly focus on gay male characters and gay life.

In this episode, I spoke with Patrick McGilligan who was one of the editors of the book "Sydney Pollack: Collected Interviews". Sydney Pollack was a true actor's director―a filmmaker who came up through the ranks, starting as a bit-part TV performer before turning to directing. From his debut feature The Slender Thread (1965) to his final film, The Interpreter (2005), Pollack built a reputation for intelligent, emotionally resonant storytelling.

In this episode, I spoke with author Mayukh Sen about his book "Love Queenie: Merlie Oberon, Hollywood's First South Asian Star". A beautiful reclamation of a pioneering South Asian actress captures her glittering, complicated life and lasting impact on Hollywood.

In this episode, I spoke with author Robert Guffey about his Book "Hollywood Haunts the World". In Hollywood Haunts the World: An Investigation into the Cinema of Occulted Taboos, Robert Guffey deconstructs the most powerful taboos of the twentieth century (and the initial decades of the twenty-first century) by analyzing how disturbing and transgressive ideas involving Theosophy, Gnosticism, Freemasonry, Darwinian Evolution, Surrealism, Freudian and Jungian psychology, race relations, paranoia, UFOs, xenophobia, political conspiracies, the JFK assassination, virtual reality, and alternate dimensions have been reflected in films―both American and foreign―throughout the past one hundred years.

In this episode, I spoke with author Matt Browning about his latest book "Gilmore Girls: Pop Culture Reference Guide". Finally understand every single pop culture joke, obscure reference, and witty one-liner that makes Gilmore Girls one of the most reference-packed shows in television history.

In this episode Robert Ray comes on to discuss Ben-Hur (1959) in 4K for the Easter season.